René GRAETZ was born in Berlin on August 2, 1908. He
had an Italian mother, his father was Russian and his family lived in Geneva.
He learned to be a printer, specialised in intaglio printing. 1929 he went
to South Africa to help building up a printing office. In Cape Town he attended
the sculpture's class in the Art Academy. He went on study trips through
South-west and East Africa. 1934-39 GRAETZ made portrait figures (e.g. Malayan
boy 1939) which were strongly influenced by the expressionist forms used
by the English sculptor Jacob Epstein.

1939

1940

He left South Africa in 1939, visited Paris and Zurich
and then decided to stay in London. He was intensively occupied with the
works of Henry Moore, whom he saw in his London studio. In the forties he
created works which for the first time had to do with the theme "Mother
and child". This theme attracted his attention continuously until 1974 in
the field of painting, drawing and sculpture. Also Picasso's forms of expression
corresponded to GRAETZ artistic feeling. Subject matter was man in conflict
with society.Elizabeth Litho
In his artistic forms of expression he always looked for symbols and metaphors.
Because of his German nationality he was interned to the Isle of Man in
1940, later he was deported to Canada for a year. There he produced a series
of impressing drawings (theme centaurs). 1941, again in London, GRAETZ worked
together with the "Freier Deutscher Kulturbund" and with the British artists
organization "Artist's International Association". He helped to work out
exhibitions on art in general and on political propaganda. 1944 he married
the graphic artist Elizabeth
Shaw. Together with other German emigrants GRAETZ arrived in East Berlin
in 1946 to help to build up a new Germany.

1949

In 1949 GRAETZ, Arno Mohr and Horst Strempel worked at the wall painting
"Metallurgy Hennigsdorf" ( steel works north of Berlin). This painting was
rejected in a period of re-orientation and of discussions on formalism.
Many big wall paintings were attacked by the head of the Socialist Unity
Party. 1952 GRAETZ went on an educational trip to Moscow together with the
GDR sculptors Cremer, Seitz, Grzimek and Hahne. 1952 he created a sculpture
of the Greek freedom-fighter Nikos Beloyanis. 1956 he went to Italy, delegated
by the GDR Association of Fine Arts (Verband Bildender Künstler).

1957

At
the same time he was occupied with the theme "Sitting
Woman" and here he used the techniques of lithography, etching and
drawing. He modelled different small sculptures e.g. Drawing
Woman 1959 (bought by Kloster Unser Lieben Frauen, Magdeburg), " Woman
With Flowers" 1956 (Moritzburg, Halle) and the "Big Sitting Woman" 1958
(Leuna-Park, Halle). Together with Waldemar Grzimek and Fritz Cremer he
took part in organizing the artistic design of the Buchenwald Memorial
in 1958. GRAETZ made three big steles. He then had the possibility to
produce a big sculpture for the Sachsenhausen Memorial. The first, expressive
sketch of the group " Liberation" was refused,the second admitted. 1960
he continued analysing the themes war and peace. He found different forms
of expression and metaphors e.g. the phoenix, the heaven's ladder, light
and darkness.He created two versions of the sculpture Falling
Man and several coloured drawings using the same theme. He was also
occupied with the crucifixion. GRAETZ glazed 15 different ceramic vessels
and plates with various motifs. With 20 ceramic plates he decorated a
hotel hall in Berlin and with 70 wall plates the waiting rooms of a medical
institute. Together with the painter Helmut Diehl he created a big wall
painting for the swimming baths in Halle-Neustadt.
1965 GRAETZ was elected to be a member of the UNESCO Artist's International
Association Executive Committee for the GDR, 1973 he was their honorary
president. Working for this association he was able to undertake trips
to Japan, Amsterdam, Bagdad and London. These trips were immediately reflected
in his works. He was always interested in picking up stimulants which
he could then use for his artistic work.

1960

1970-1973

970
he intensively used the technique silk screen printing. The print Red
Ladder was especially successful. The sculpture "Poet and Muse" was
created in 1973 as a reaction to the death of Pablo Neruda. The sculpture
"West Wind" was made again having Henry Moore in mind. GRAETZ started making
sculptures which he called Upright
Figures. He writes in his dairy: Starting again - my sense of form is
exhausted, have to look for new relation of forms. Is the human figure in
sculpture the only way of expressing ideas? Of course not. A real plastic
figure should not have two the same point of views. We have to learn to
feel forms as forms(1971)." B. Barsch writes: " He realizes the forms as
bearer of sensorial and emotional expression, man has to educate his sensibility
towards the form." 1973 the small sculpture "Rosa Luxemburg" waggs created
as a sketch for a big sculpture in Berlin, this project was not carried
out. 1973 GRAETZ received the Käthe Kollwitz Prize of the GDR Academy of
Arts.

1974

On September
17, 1974 René Graetz died in Graal-Müritz and was buried in Berlin, Dorotheenstädtischer
Friedhof. After his death the National Gallery in Berlin had his first big
exhibition in 1978. The catalogue made for this occasion was the first printed
catalogue of his work. 1995 the Academy of Arts foundation in Berlin, department
fine arts, took over the whole written estate of René Graetz. His graphic
work, sculptures and ceramic works are looked after by the arts archives
Graetz/Shaw.